Written by Mark MacNamara. Originally: "Dialog With Stone," a traveler's digression begun in 2004, with entries From Africa, Europe and North America. Now: a ramble-jam through the countryside of American culture, high and low, real and imagined.

Feb 28, 2013

This is worth looking at, if you haven't seen it orbiting the Internet: A blue speck in the great nothingness: An old view revisited (my title) The old view is of the earth from Apollo. The revisionist view is simply a reminder that the earth is finally fragile and the arc of the story is from me to we. We're moving from I-earth to We-earth. Slow as that is. The actual title of this is, "Some Strange Things Are Happening to Astronauts Returning to Earth."

Feb 26, 2013

Here is a corrected version of a wikipedia entry that I was unable to edit online. I was also unable to reach a talk page to suggest proper changes. My hope is that at least search engines may find this. For those interested in the case please contact me at macnamband@mac.com

Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in.

For other uses, see Douglas Clark. Doug Clark Background information Birth name Douglas Daniel Clark Also known as The Hollywood Slasher The Sunset Strip Killer The Sunset Strip Slayer Born March 10, 1948 (age 64) Pennsylvania Conviction Murder Sentence Death Killings Number of victims 7 Country United States State(s) Burbank, California Los Angeles, California Date apprehended August 1980 Douglas Daniel Clark (born March 10, 1948) is an American serial killer.[1]
Clark and his accomplice Carol M. Bundy are known as the "Sunset Strip Killers". They were accused and subsequently convicted of a series of killings in Los Angeles. Clark, a boiler operator in a Jergens soap factory, previously worked at a San Fernando power station, but was fired due to a high rate of absences and threats of violence made against his coworkers. After his marriage failed, he met Bundy in 1980 and began living with her.[2] According to Bundy, Clark's relationship with her became physically and mentally abusive, and he also began paying less attention to her. She also claimed he began to share his violent fantasies with her.
In June 1980, Clark, by himself, or with Bundy — or Bundy with another lover named Jack Murray whom she had known for several years — made their first kill.[3] The majority of victims were prostitutes who, according to Bundy, Clark killed during or after sex. Clark has always denied he killed anybody, although he admits to other crimes. He claims he had been having sex with prostitutes for many years and had no reason to suddenly begin killing them. Bundy told police investigators that Clark was striving to fulfill his fantasy of killing a woman during sex and feeling her vaginal contractions during the death spasms.[1] In one of the murders, in North Hollywood, Bundy bought a young prostitute for Clark's birthday. Bundy's story was that she was in the back seat of a car, Clark and the prostitute in the front seat, and while Clark was receiving an act of fellatio Bundy placed one of two identical guns the couple owned in Clark's open palm. Bundy claims Clark then shot the girl in the head. Clark's story is that he was in the back seat, Bundy in the front seat, and it was Bundy who took one of their little silver guns out of the glove compartment and shot the girl in the head.
In one of her most improbable assertions Bundy once claimed Clark told her that if either of them were apprehended, he would take the blame in the hope that Bundy would be allowed to go free.[4] Clark has always claimed that shortly after they began living together he began to loathe Bundy and endlessly berated and humiliated her. On one occasion Clark and Bundy allegedly saved the head of one of the murder victim and stored it in a freezer for use as a sex toy.[5] They later put it in a hat box and left it in an alleyway.
After his arrest in August 1980, Clark acted as his own defense, insisting that he was being framed by the prosecution for the murders. In fact, almost all the evidence against him at trial came from Bundy who initially claimed to investigators that she only knew about the murders through Clark — except for the murder in North Hollywood, which she admitted to having been an accessory.
But there were disturbing parts of the case that were never resolved. For instance why did Bundy kill Jack Murray, a married apartment manager who she had known before meeting Clark. Bundy shot him, stabbed him, and cut off his head — to make police think it had been the work of a "Manson like group". Clark has speculated that Murray was perhaps becoming skittish as Bundy's partner in the murders and killed him to protect herself. Bundy would claim she murdered Murray because he had asked her to arrange a sexual liaison with a 13-year-old girl that Bundy knew and who had been sexually abused by Clark. No forensic analysis was ever done of the bodies of Jack and the prostitute who had been beheaded to see there might be some similarity. Bundy claimed she knew nothing about the beheading of the prostitute, although she admitted finding the head in the refrigerator. And finally there was a piece of bloody scalp found in the air vent of Jack's van. It's not clear whether that was ever analyzed to seek a match with any of the victims.

Sentenced to death in 1983, he sits on California's death row.[2][3] Bundy plea bargained and, in return for her testimony, received a life sentence. See also

Feb 22, 2013

"You could say that, Matty — you could very well come to that conclusion — but I couldn't say that."
The eerie refrain of Francis Urquart (pronouced 'Irkit'), with his signature smile, the infamous FU, Ian Richardson's right wing, great white shark, ever on his way up, and less for the sake of power, as compelling as that is, his wife always reminds him. No, he's in it more for the game, being an addict of mischief, the way some small boys take the finest pleasure in burning up small animals.
But what better portrait of evil incarnate. And how precise his strokes, from bemused to infuriated in an instant, from wise to churlish in an instant, as though his character has no foundation, which of course it doesn't.
He accompanies his evil; he doesn't lead or follow it. They are a brace and they look at each other with that knowing ironic look. And so the asides to the camera, because of course we are the accompanying evil.
"You might very well think that, Matty, but you know I couldn't say that."
It is also the powerbroker's cliched way through the thicket of non-denial denials, and the euphemism of 'on background only.'
I mention this by way of contrast to the less refined FUs 20 years later, in America, one of the Texas GOP delegates, perhaps, one of those who last July voted on an educational platform to deny the teaching of critical thinking skills. That you could say is Urquartish, but without his cleverness. He would have disguised the whole thing. Or Florida Gov. Scott, reversing himself on Medicaid. Or John McCain with some of his reversals.
There are countless examples these days on the eve of sequestration — which sounds so much like a word that means, "the next to be castrated." But who is FU's equal these days in America? No one. We don't have a character so sophisticated, or interesting. Ah, but what about Ted Cruz? He has that look and pedigree. William F. Buckley was a kind of FU, although more pompous than cruel. The real FU would have done him in, found some adultery or addiction and forced him to cower.
Maybe Nixon would be the equivalent.
Now we have only the likes of the Limbot, Boehner-boner, and the Koch heads. No match and yet just as calculating, just as evil. Which is not to indict solely conservatives. After all, there was LBJ, and you could argue that Bill Clinton in office was the most Urquartish of all.

Feb 21, 2013

Vinny had just gone to see Stand Up Guys. "Loved it," he said sitting in his new wheel chair. "Just loved it."
I hadn't seen him in such a good mood in ages. "I am Alan Arkin," he said, adjusting his oxygen.
"What else is new?" I asked.
"Just got my 'I-Cremation'."
"What's that?"
"Special deal. Pay now; you don't have to worry later. Everything's taken care of. You fill out an online form: where you want the ashes spread: sea of somewhere, top of a mountain, the backyard, in your old out basket, or get this: they put a lil'-dab'll-do-you in envelopes to your family and friends on the very next Christmas. Or on your birthday for years to come.
"So you never go away."
"Well, isn't that the fear: A few months later no one remembers you were even here much less gone. Plus it goes with my I-Phone, my I-pad... My 'I'. Forget this 'we and our' shit. I got my I."
"Gotta go," he said and rolled off down the street.